Study: Most CMOs Fail to Understand AI Beyond ChatGPT

Plus Company, an entrepreneurial network of forward-thinking creative agencies, and Statista, a global data and business intelligence platform, today released a joint report compiled from the responses of 200 CMOs about the challenges CMOs face implementing AI beyond content creation to more sophisticated decision-making processes in a cookieless world. The report, “Marketing's AI Era: Strategies & Measurement Driven by AI-Powered Prediction,” showed that 75% of marketers have not yet taken steps to prepare for measurement in a world without third-party cookies because they need guidance on how to take action. 

“This number is not surprising given the lack of solutions for either audience level measurement for assessing advertising investment performance or for establishing a single metric that advertising buyers and sellers agree upon to trade digital media" said Michael Cohen, Chief Data Analytics Officer, Plus Company. “We are entering a post third-party cookie era and yet according to the study although AI is widely embraced by CMOs (81%), only 36% of respondents use AI for creating attribution models.”

The Plus/Statista study is the first in a two-part series that explores insights into AI usage and its impact on marketing performance. The survey examined responses from 200 CMOs from mid- and -large-sized corporations across six industries (Manufacturing/CPG, Financial services, Retail/e-commerce, Transport/logistics, Hospitality/Travel/Tourism and Telecommunications), and revealed an excitement among 63% of CMOs in exploring machine learning to better understand customer behavior. 

The study also shows that contrary to widespread apprehensions, there is a surprising 53% consensus among industry experts anticipating a surge, not a decline, in creative roles because of AI.  

“These are exciting times for CMOs thanks to AI and its seemingly limitless potential,” said Plus Company, CEO, Brett Marchand. “What will the Marketing Department of the future look like? Among the reasons why this study is important is that it reveals to CMOs that they are not alone in needing to learn more about AI. This is a wide-open vista where everyone is learning. The only mistake is not pushing forward with AI.” 

For further information and a numerical analysis of CMOs embrace of AI, the full findings of the study are available here.

About Plus Company:

Plus Company, founded in 2021, is an entrepreneurial network of forward-thinking creative agencies, each bringing its own expertise and empowered by the collective capabilities of the network representing 15 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.   Brought together by the unabashed belief that anything is possible, the unique partnership of and limitless drive of delivering creative magic fueled by an innate understanding of culture, technology, and data. Plus Company agency brands include: We Are Social and its partner practices The Narrative Group (TNG), Socialize, Hello, Kobe, and Metta; Cossette, Citizen Relations, Mekanism, All Inclusive Marketing (AIM), Aperture1, Camp Jefferson, Cossette Media, Impact Research, Jungle Media, K72, Level Eleven, Magic Circle Workshop, Make My Day, Middle Child, Mindshaker, Munvo, Septième, Visionnaire, Zapiens and 55rush. Built on collaboration, not competition. We are Partners In Possibility.

About Statista:

Statista is one of the world’s leading data and business intelligence platforms, empowering people worldwide to make fact-based decisions. Providing access to data, analysis, and trends on 80,000 topics from 40,000 sources across more than 170 industries, Statista.com has become the premier destination for statistics and reports, as well as for market, consumer, and company insights. Founded in 2007 in Germany, Statista employs around 1,400 people across 13 locations worldwide.